Korg AX300G

AX300G is definitely easy . It's the first processor I'm buying and I've no experience with effects . A quick look at the manual was enough . The presets help you a lot finding a sound similar to what you want . Then you can edit them and get exactly what you want . Editing is quite easy though you need to take a look at the manual . The manual could be better, but I think it's enough .

I'm using a standard Fender Stratocaster and an Aria AG35R amp . This means that I normally have a quite "clean" sound . The processor has good sound quality (I think very good for it's price) . Most effects sound very good though I can't say I'm thrilled with the distortions . However , this is not very important for me because I rarely use distortions as main effects . I was trying to get that old Cure sound (which is my favorite band) and I found that quite easy . The flangers , the phasers , the choruses , etc sound really very good . Though I must say that most presets were quite far from what I was searching I managed (using IPE) to get the desired sound fast and easy . Also very useful is the noise reduction feature . It can improve most effects and especially the distortions .

It's plastic . However , it seems quite reliable and I would use it on a gig and probably without a backup . Anyway , I think that if the gig is important most people will have a backup even for very strong units . If you're planning to jump on it , kick it or something like that you better be careful :-) .

Never needed it .

For my music style (New Wave , Alternative Rock) AX300G is I think a good choice and I would probably buy it again . My favorite effects would definitely be the flangers and the phasers . The most "hated" feature would be the pressure pedal (which I think it's not really easy) but I rarely use it anyway . I have no experience with other similar products so I can't make any comparisons . I wish it had more flexibility on the on/off switching of the effects . For example I needed to turn on the Distortion and the Flanger at the same time but I couldn't do it with one pedal . I had to press two pedals which is not very easy .

I'm only a beginning guitarist and so this was my first effects processor. Although i didn't have any experience with them, i found it vet easy to use and was editing patches in about 20 minutes. The manual is easy to follow.

I have a Fender Squier Strat and a little fender AMP. Not the greatest setup in the world (!!!), but I can still get some great sounds from it. Chorus is probably the weakest of the effects.
I'm a big Eddie Van Halen fan and try to play a lot of Van Halen. Sounds pretty good, and there are 2 VH presets 'Eruption!' and 'Unchained' which sound pretty good.

Seems fairly robust, but it is plastic. Never gigged with it, so I can't really give an opinion.

Never Used 'Em

I think that for the money, this is an extremely good effects processor. I would definately buy another one if it went AWOL.

It's easy to use straight out of the box. As mentioned by others, the need for a pedal to scroll through the presets would be useful. I've been using a Korg Pandora PX-1 so I have some familiarity with the idiot proof editing concept (useful since I am an idiot). Downloaded some patches and input them on day 2. Manual is a little difficult. Without previous experience with korg, I would have had to make a bit more of an effort to program. Still not rocket science. Friend has RP-7 and I had no idea how to edit that.

Setup is a Schecter Super Strat with three EMGs (2 singles, and humbucker at bridge) into AX300G into Digitech Time Machine (4 Sec) into Roland Cube 60. Only had it for a few days but trying to be objective. Sound is excellent. No noise compared to Pandora through the amp. Clean sounds are nice and useable. Some distortions are a little to metally for my tastes. Still looking for a warm saturated compressed Zappa/Fripp type feel. Alot of presets make weird sounds which I like particularly for looping through the time machine. However, some of these sounds may not be useful in a band situation.

Bad news! The pressure pedal died on day 2. I've sent out a number of emails to other AX30 users to see what the history is and then will return it for a new one or for an RP-3. Until then my opinion is going to be reserved. I might add that the one day that it did work I was surprised at how useful it seemed. Not going to through away the

I have no idea how to contact Korg. There web site has no email address and no phone numbers associated with it. The Korg address is somewhere in Japan i think. This rates very poorly in my book!

Play rock with some ambient type looping. Been playing for approx. 20 years but only as an amatuer enthusiast. With a limited budget, I'd buy this over similar competitors. RP-3 is more but has no ring modulator or tap tempo. RP-7 is impressive but approx. 150 more. Not into zoom or DOD mfx. I was very happy with the Pandora. It did what I wanted and more so Korg gets the nod again. The absence of noise is a very promising feature of this unit. I'll touch back after the pressure pedal dilemma is resolved.

At first it seemed a little difficult to program. In my opinion the manual is not very good, but after playing with it for a while I could get most of the sounds I wanted. It is actually easy, if a little time consuming, to edit the patches.

The sound is great! I usually use it with headphones, or a small Park amp, or a larger Crate. The noise reduction works great, and the clean sounds are nice, though in my opinion they can be improved to sound less "artificial". The reverbs are good, the pitch shifting works pretty well. The chorus would seem to be the weaker effect, and the distortions are a little too trebley for my tastes. But overall I would say the effects are excellent. The noise reduction is excellent, and the sound is very well defined. I like the input gain knob, since my guitar has active pickups and some other effect processors sound like crap with it because of the higher output.

I have had several Korg products in 10 years, and I have never had a problem with one. I think that as long as you treat it well, and take care of the ac adapter cord (the first part to usually give problems, in my experience) it will last a long time. I think I could use it without a backup. I also own a Pandora PX1, which I have dropped several times in a hardwood floor, and still works perfectly.

I have dealt with Korg once, to get my M1 keyboard fixed of a dirty volume slider, and they were very helpful. The service was fast and reasonably priced. Their website is not very good, though, and the guy who fixed my keyboard didn't know about the M1EX expansion for the keyboard, but it is an old keyboard.

I would definitely get another one if I lost this one. I don't like the finish, it looks cheaper than the other Korg products, but the sound quality is great and it is an inspiring toy. I wish the chorus was a little better. I have been playing for six years, and I wanted to get something not very expensive but that would give me better quality than the Pandora. I tried the Boss ME-30, the Digitech RP7, and the Pandora 2. I liked the sounds of the Korg AX300G a lot more than the others, particularly the distortions.
The thing I hate the most is the tuner. Though it seems reasonably accurate, for some reason I just don't like it. I have another, more precise Korg tuner, anyway, so I only use the AX tuner when I am playing with headphones.

When i first got it, i had no idea on how to use this thing, i had to read the whole manual to get going. The manual is fairly good, and after reading it i understood everything, how to edit, the effects, everything.

This unit is very good sounding, it makes very little noise. all the effects are very good, and they all have many parameters and combinations that u can mess with if you dont like the sound. i would have given it a 10 if the distortions were better, they are very good for soloing but thaths it, they are just to fuzzy and have to much treble, they need more power or something, but i dont use them anyways I use my marshalls amp distorition, i just equalize it with this unit and it makes it sound incredible. but all the many other effects are very, very good and are what i expected, i can find any setting i want.

This was the effects unit i was looking for, i was planning on getting effects separately, but i made the good descicion and got this one. i can find any effect type i want and modify it in many ways. before this i had the dod tec 8, and it was very bad and sold it, this is THE EFFECTS UNIT. the thing that i like the most is that you can do wathever you want in it, play certain effect separataly with individual mode, etc.. and also all the variations it has in the parameters, and the pressure pedal, if you are looking for distortion sound i dont reccomend it that much.

Setup was very easy, just plug in and let go. Has 6 pedals: 1 bank switch, 4 switches to change effects within the bank, and 1 pressure pedal (I'll explain). The 300G is identical to the 30G except for these differences: 32 user and 100 presets vs. 30g's 16 user and 50 presets. Plus, the pressure pedal is now a LOT easier to push down. The USER presets are sorted into 2 sections, A and B. Each section has 16 effects, to switch from A to B, you have to hit a small button on the pedal. It's not a big deal, unless you want to use more than 16 effects in a given song. The presets can only be accessed through a dial, so the only way to use them on stage is to store the ones you like in user settings. The pressure pedal's a bitch, I tried it out in the store, and though I loved the unit, could not leave until I got a 50 dollar expression pedal, I just couldn't play it -- you can't keep the wah in a certain position, etc. Bottom line: get the expression pedal unless you *like* to keep your foot frozen in a certain position to keep the same tone of wah.
Editing: Kinda difficult to get to the low level parameters, but with some experience, you'll get it, and you'll be able to do stuff you can't do in other pedals. You can organize which effect comes first in a chain, and a lot of parameters per effect. I learned it in about 1 hour, if you can use the internet, you can figure this out, if it's too hard for you, Korg included IPE (Intergrated Parameter Editing, "Idiot Proof Editing" is for the Pandora), so you can edit stuff easily without learning a lot, but not being able to change some low level parameters. Also, you can do stuff like switch off a certain effect of a chain while playing (So you can turn off just the distortion, and not the flanger or something like that), and attribute the pressure/expression pedal to many different parameters, like distortion gain.

Awesome, the clean sounds are pretty much perfect. I use an Ibanez RG550, but to test the sounds, I used headphones and not an amp. The distortions are slightly noisy, but the noise reduction makes up for it. I really like the effects, in my opinion, better than the Boss ME-30 or the Zoom 3030. Chorus is sort of weak, but that's the only effect that is. I can duplicate all the people I listen to: Metallica, Bush, Sublime, you name it. Good variety of delays, stereo, tap, etc.

Yeah, it's plastic, wouldn't buy a backup for anything really, I'm not a real die-hard player, I'd probably invest the money and buy a better guitar or something. I wouldn't jump on it, or smash your guitar on it, but it's pretty sturdy for a plastic unit.

Dunno, never called.

It's a great value. I play everything from Metal to punk to ska, and it works perfectly for all. I can get crunching metal, then switch to a high gain lead with wah for solos. I'd buy this over any other unit in the price range, don't know about Digitech though, as I never tried. But definitely over the ME-30 (weak distortions), the Zoom 3030 (weak everything else but distortions), Dod's Tec8, and Korg's Pandora. For some good info on it, go to www.wizard.net/~jtsinger/ax30g1.html that site has some good patches, and info. Remember, the 300g is the same as the 30g.